Discover His heart: He understands our guilt and pain
After observing the exploits of four mischievous older brothers while growing up, I was decidedly a compliant child and teenager. I mean, how much can parents take? My obedience wasn’t due so much to any goodness on my part, but more so out of compassion for my mom. Somebody needed to give her a break! However, I remember a time as a young teen when I blatantly disobeyed her.
It wasn’t an unpardonable sin kind of thing, but in that day and in our church, it was considered wrong. Today? Not so much. I will never forget the torment of guilt that plagued me as I sat in disobedience, nothing was right with the world, I was somehow stained, and God seemed completely out of reach. The feeling of guilt over something we have done wrong is a powerful emotion. In light of this, I can’t imagine bearing someone else’s guilt of sin for them. I just wouldn’t want to do it.
@ Matthew 26
“My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (39) Do I really understand this prayer? Jesus knew the physical pain He would experience. He knew the emotional pain He would feel as He bore the sins of the world. He knew the spiritual pain of separation from His Father that He would endure. Yes, I have known physical, emotional and spiritual pain, but I have never known them as the sinless Son of God. “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
If sinful me would run from this cup, I can only imagine the dread felt by our spotless Lord to take on the guilt of the entire world, for us. If it is possible…but, no, it wasn’t possible. Our redemption would require a spotless Lamb, the only One of its kind, “He humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8)
I can’t think of a more desperate moment for anyone who has ever walked this earth than the time that Jesus spent in the Garden of Gethsemane, The Olive Press, and the place where He felt the press of agonizing pain before His crucifixion. Rejected by those He came to redeem, betrayed by one of His own, knowing He would be denied by all who followed Him and now the Cross, He prayed, “Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we have been rejected by those we have tried to serve, betrayed by those we trusted or denied and abandoned by those we have loved – friends, companions, children, parishioners. We pray for the pain of this cup of suffering to pass, and because of Gethsemane, we know He understands. “He prayed more fervently, and He was in such agony of spirit that His sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.” (Luke 22:44) He understands our pain, and unlike His disciples, He will keep watch with us.
Perhaps we know individuals who are walking this difficult path right now. Will we keep watch with them and pray with them in their hour of Gethsemane? I regret the times when a busy day keeps me from watching over others like I want to, but at the very least I will pray for them, along with Jesus who “lives forever to intercede with God on our behalf.” (Hebrew 7:25) No one, absolutely no one, understands like Jesus.
Moving Forward: Reminded of an old song today, “No one understands like Jesus when the days are dark and grim. No one is so near, so dear as Jesus. Cast your every care on Him.” (J.W. Peterson)
Tomorrow @ I Corinthians 5-6
Phyllis Benigas 